My Best Friend is Pregnant
So, yesterday I found out that my best friend is pregnant. I was one of the first people she told and I am super happy for her! And also touched that she decided to tell me before most anyone else. I know she's going to be a great mother and I know she's feared in the past that she may never be able to have kids, so I'm so happy this worked out for her. My only problem is that I think I'm jealous. She got married this summer, now she's having a baby, after so many other friends (or at least "people I know" since I don't really have many friends to begin with) have accomplished the same. My entire life, I've been obsessed with pregnancy and childbirth and parenthood. I've always been positive that if I never accomplished anything else I wanted in life, the bare minimum was that I wanted to be a mother. Technically, nothing is stopping me from having a baby, too, but I'm not in the right place in my life right now to have kids. My boyfriend and I have been together for 3.5 years, I'm in my senior year of college, and I also live in a terrible college town with high crime rates, I can't drive, and I've never had a job. I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do with myself when I graduate next spring. I don't feel at all like a functional adult so logically I know having a baby is not the right thing for me right now (if ever, which is another matter entirely--lately I've been really spooked by the fear that I may never be realistically ready for a baby, despite it being the only thing I've ever been sure about wanting in my life). I'm just jealous that I'm not at the point in my life where having a baby is realistically possible. I feel like everyone else is miles ahead of me in accomplishing things in their life, my best friend included, and I feel so damn behind. I don't want to be jealous or feel this way, but I do and I don't know how to handle it. I'm also terrified that having a baby means my best friend won't have any room in her life for me anymore. For the past eight years, my best friend has been like the sister I never had. She's always been the one I could turn to with whatever problems I was having, I could always be open and honest with her and vent to her. Now that she's having a baby, though, anything I'm feeling or going through feels insignificant. I mean, how can anything be more important than the issues that come with growing an actual human being in your body? I feel like I want to isolate myself and bottle everything up because there's no point. I'm not important anymore. I don't feel betrayed by my best friend's pregnancy, but I do feel depressed and lost and jealous and I hate that I feel that way because I don't want to. I want to be happy for her without all the bad stuff nagging me in the back of my mind, but I don't know how when it feels like I'm so far behind everyone else and so terrified that I'm going to lose my best friend and the bond we've built up over the past eight years because my shit isn't anywhere near as important anymore. I don't know, I feel like I'm not making a ton of sense and I'm rambling and being a pain in the butt and I probably sound so damn selfish but I just don't know what to do. I want to cry, I want to cut myself off from everyone and everything because god I'm being so petty and disgusting, and more than I anything I want to be in a position in my life right now where I can have a baby, too :\